Ethics, Duty, and Other Unspeakable Things
by Konstantya
Summary: There was something about this situation that he found surreally familiar... Tseng, Elena, Vincent, and an interlude of rescue. [Set in Advent Children.]


General Note: I'm only going to reformat my fics so much when this site is the one at fault. So If the formatting is weird (like, say, there _aren't any scene breaks where there should be_), please check out my profile for more info. Thank you.

A/N: One thing that always struck me in "Advent Children" (at least in the original Japanese, as I never watched the dub) was how incredibly cold and even angry Vincent sounded when talking to Cloud about Tseng and Elena—just those lines, "They deserved it. They got their hands on Jenova's head." Totally made me remember that while, yeah, Vincent's an angsty gentleman, first and foremost he was a total badass.

And excuse me while I casually ignore how the Turks in the game wore navy blue while the Turks in "Advent Children" wore black.

Obligatory (but ultimately pointless) CYA: I don't own it.

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**Ethics, Duty, and Other Unspeakable Things  
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The forests of the Forgotten City were different this time around.

They smelled of blood.

The two of them were in a small clearing, feet bound, hands tied behind them around the bases of small trees, blood staining both the ground and their clothes. Tseng and Elena, he recalled the names. Turks. Modern ones.

His tie was missing and his jacket was torn in more than a few places. A swollen, bruised jaw, and more. Dried blood trailing down from his nose, the front of his shirt colored a dark rust. Her jacket was gone on the other hand, but her tie was knotted around her head as a gag. Heavy bruises, blood from a head wound dying her blonde hair dark in parts. She was in a worse state than he was; her injuries looked older. Whoever had done this had probably hoped to guilt whatever it was they wanted out of the man by wounding the woman more. Looking back at Tseng's condition, he could tell it hadn't worked.

The cold loyalty of the Turks was a frightening thing when one thought about it.

The offenders must have gotten fed up when torture seemed futile and simply left them there to die. A sharp-suited ghost of a young man from thirty years ago, with short hair and brown eyes, flared inside him momentarily, and he almost smirked in admiration at their resilience.

But.

Now there was the matter of what to do. Did he really feel compelled to save them? While it was true they didn't exactly qualify as enemies anymore, there had never been a clear-cut truce. _Avalanche_ and the remains of Shin-Ra had simply gone their separate ways after Sephiroth and Meteor. So could he, in good conscience, just leave?

No. He knew that much.

So, then—what? Stand there, looking at them, until they simply died? Better yet, why not end it quickly, put them out of their misery, and simply shoot them both dead?

He frowned slightly. No. He found he didn't particularly like those options, either.

So. Process of elimination said that he would save them.

Maybe it was a sense of camaraderie—whether nostalgic or habitual, he didn't know—that he still felt toward those suits. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was simply those nagging little morals he seemed to have developed.

Maybe. He didn't stop to think about it for too long.

He went to Elena first, knelt down, pulled a small knife from his boot, and set about cutting her bindings. Her pulse was shallow. Her lips were dry and chapped and a light shade of blue. Upon removing her tie from her teeth, dried blood was found smeared at the edges of her mouth. He gave her cheek a couple sharp little strikes to see if he could force some consciousness into her. After a moment, she moaned weakly and blinked blearily.

"Elena." Her eyes merely closed and her head slumped down. He moved it back up with his right hand and forced her to look him in the eyes. Lids swollen, she blinked at him dumbly. "Who did this to you?" he asked very clearly.

She made a noise and shook her head feebly. "…J…Jenova…"

Vincent quirked an eyebrow down. "Jenova did this to you."

"Ughhh…"

He frowned. She was delirious, and obviously wouldn't be offering anything of actual use at the moment. Gently, he laid her on the ground, unbuckled his cloak, and draped it over her form. He tried the same thing with Tseng, but didn't even receive an incoherent response from the man. He was out cold.

Standing, he set about to getting a fire started.

-  
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It was the next day, after Vincent had cleaned and bandaged their wounds as best he could with his meager traveling items, and after he had relocated Tseng's jacket to Elena and reclaimed his cloak, that he received some answers.

A slight shifting of limbs. A repressed groan of pain. The recollection of events which had brought him to this, and Tseng opened his eyes to survey the situation. Difficultly, wincing with the movement and clenching his jaw, he managed to sit up and prop himself against a tree.

Vincent rose from where he had been sitting near the fire and came to stand in front of him, silently holding out a small tin cup full of water. With a look of appraisal and a slight nod, Tseng accepted it, drinking gratefully. Vincent moved off to the side, a few feet away, and settled once more on the ground. His right arm was propped up on the same knee, and he watched the small fire.

Empty cup still in hand, Tseng narrowed his dark eyes at Vincent in speculation. "Why—" He tried to talk, but his voice came out cracked and hoarse, and he had to clear his throat before he tried to speak again. "Why are _you_ here?" he demanded coolly.

Vincent ignored this, continued to regard the fire, and spoke with detachment. "Weren't you supposed to have died at the Temple of the Ancients?"

The leader of the Turks was not about to be shown up by someone else's unperturbed manner, even if that someone else had red eyes and a claw for a left arm, and even if he, himself, happened to be extremely worse for wear. "Turks are known for cheating death."

This garnered him a sideways look and an unreadable "hmm" from the red-cloaked gunman.

For a moment, the only noise was the crackling of the little fire.

Tseng nodded over at Elena. "How is she?"

"She's out with a fever, but…her condition has improved." He looked back at Tseng and got down to business. "Who did this?"

He gave the other man a long look before deigning to answer. "…There were three of them."

"Who?"

"We don't know. The youngest is apparently their leader. Probably late teens. 'Kadaj,' I believe."

"What were they after?"

"…Jenova."

Vincent narrowed his eyes at Tseng and remembered Elena's mumbling. His toneless voice couldn't quite conceal the icy bite behind his words. "And what do the Turks of Shin-Ra have to do with Jenova anymore?"

He took another long, suspicious look at Vincent. Though they weren't exactly allies, the man had saved him and Elena, and if one went by the "enemy of my enemy" saying… "We discovered the head in an excavation of the Northern Crater."

It seemed that before the words were completely out of his mouth, even, his back was painfully slammed into the trunk of the tree. After the searing pain of aching wounds yet to fully heal had passed, Tseng opened his eyes to find a black-gloved fist gripping his collar and a wicked brass claw glinting a little too close to his neck for comfort. Flicking his eyes up, he found himself the object of a very cold, very unnatural crimson glare.

Being good at torture was one thing. Being good at intimidation was an entirely different thing, and those silver-haired bastards had absolutely nothing on Vincent Valentine.

Vincent spoke, his voice low and metered with a slow precision. "I am going to ask you to repeat that for clarification purposes, and I want you to think very carefully about the words you say."

There was something about this situation that Tseng found surreally familiar, and it had nothing to do with how three Sephiroth wannabes had recently tried to force information out of him.

The hand gripping his collar pushed him harder into the bark behind him, and he hissed in a wince. "We…we were sent to…retrieve anything of interest from the Northern Crater."

"And you found Jenova's head."

Tseng gritted his teeth and nodded once.

"Do you know why they wanted it?"

"They kept going on about 'Mother,' like…Sephiroth used to."

Vincent stared at him for an excruciatingly long moment before he spoke again. "Are they in possession of it?"

The hands at his neck allowed him little freedom of movement, but he managed to shake his head a little. "No."

"Why were you excavating the Northern Crater?"

"I told you. We were sent there to bring back anything of interest."

"Under whose orders?"

"The President's."

"The President," he stated pointedly.

"Rufus Shinra."

Vincent scoffed. "One _more_ man who's supposed to be dead," he muttered darkly, giving Tseng's shirt collar one final clench and letting go. "We should form a club." He stood and started to slowly pace in the small clearing. The clinking of the plates on his boots echoed in the still air like a strange death knell.

Coldly regarding the tall, thin man from the ground, for a reason he couldn't decipher, Tseng was put in mind of his predecessor, Veld.

After a moment, Vincent turned back. "Why is Rufus Shinra interested in Jenova?"

Tseng rubbed a hand along his neck where fabric had dug into his skin and for a moment considered not even answering. "Geostigma." The other man gave him a sharp look. "You've heard of it," he stated more than asked.

"He's trying to find a cure," Vincent said speculatively.

"He suffers from a severe case of it. The Jenova remains were meant to be used for research."

Vincent's mouth dipped, and his eyes narrowed in concealed anger. "Come again?"

"It's what causes the geostigma, we've found. A damaging substance in one's system. Normally the body fights it off, destroys it, and that's that. But sometimes the stream in the body overcompensates."

"…And causes more harm than good," Vincent finished, his eyes off to the side and distant.

Tseng made a sound of agreement in his throat.

A moment passed, and then, not speaking one word, Vincent began to gather his things.

"You're leaving," Tseng stated, taking note that he was leaving a small parcel of food.

"I have business elsewhere." Vincent straightened, then pointed into the forest. "There's a small brook that runs about fifty meters southeast of here." And with that, he was walking away.

"Valentine."

He stopped and turned halfway to look back.

Tseng's eyes were steady with a grudging respect. "Thank you."

"I don't want your thanks," Vincent responded coldly. "What you've done is inexcusably stupid and reckless, dragging up that abomination from the planet again."

Tseng narrowed his eyes and gave Vincent a sharp look. It was the sort of look he reserved for Reno when he wasn't in the mood to tolerate any of the redhead's bullshit antics. "Then why are you helping us?" he demanded.

"Information, for the most part," Vincent responded without hesitation, already turning around again.

"And the other part?"

For a moment, Vincent merely looked at him. Something deeply buried in those strange eyes of his sparked and seemed to be trying to snap to the surface. His shoulders moved under red fabric in an odd, slight gesture that almost resembled a shrug. "…Morals…habitual loyalty, perhaps."

Another sharp look from the man propped up against the tree, though this time it was more curious and puzzled. "Habitual loyalty?"

Vincent stopped in his stride again, turning his head over his shoulder only enough to show his profile. "…That suit you wear is hardly unfamiliar to me."

Tseng blinked at the red cloak of his retreating form as the realization set in. Though new questions obviously presented themselves, suddenly some things made a lot more sense.

Once a Turk, always a Turk.

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A/N: As is usual, reviews are always welcome!


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